According to the principles of Kips Bay—and Janet at this time subscribed to these principles—there was absolutely no reason why Mr. Grey should not invite her and absolutely no reason why she should not accept. But the heart has a reason to which reason must bow. Janet’s heart was in submission to but one law, and that was the law of her integrity. She could no more strike up a friendship with a man to whom she was not naturally, spontaneously drawn than she could fly. And she could hardly pretend to be drawn to Mr. Grey. No, not even for the pleasure of giving the suspicious Mrs. Grey something to be suspicious about. Besides, the man was too cocksure. He appeared to share Mrs. Grey’s conviction that the slightest nod on his part would incline Janet (or any other woman) to follow him to the ends of the earth. This was amusing. But it was also irritating to one’s pride of sex. The trouble with Mr. Grey was that, having realized the first of the two ambitions which governed his desires, he felt satisfied he was about to realize the second. As an author, he had conquered the public; as a man, he now meant to conquer women. To Janet, Mr. Grey’s illusions about himself were as transparent as his illusions about her. It was plain that he took with the utmost seriousness the greatness that had recently been thrust upon him. His reasoning was quite simple. If success in pleasing the crowd and its leaders did not imply the possession of superior gifts and of a masterly technique in exploiting those gifts, what did it imply? This reasoning struck Janet as puerile. Yet Mr. Grey could hardly be expected to share her view that talent and superb execution had never by themselves attracted the plaudits of the crowd, or that the only man who could please the million was the man born with the taste of the million. Mr. Grey had been lucky enough to inherit this taste. Why demand that he look a gift horse in the mouth? But the judgment of youth is direct and pitiless! It seemed nothing less than ridiculous to Janet that Mr. Grey should seriously pose as a fount of the divine fire, and calmly invite her to become a ministering angel to the sacred fount. What was still more ridiculous was that he disguised his offer in weird, roundabout phrases calculated to enable her to "save her face." He was still confidently urging the project, when Mrs. Grey swept in and fell upon them like a moral landslide. Mrs. Grey did not stop to account for her unexpected return, to disclose how long she had been eavesdropping, or to listen to Mr. Grey’s stumbling and embarrassed explanations. Her belligerent manner left no doubt that she put the very worst construction on what she had heard. Ignoring Janet altogether, she opened her batteries full on her husband and discharged a broadside of questions, short, sharp and desolating. Her questions were entirely rhetorical.